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Being Love in a World that Wants to Hate
Being Love
Being Love in a World that Wants to Hate
Being Love requires persistence, discipline, personal responsibility, accountability, and courage. Being Love requires vulnerability and humility. Being Love asks us to be willing to admit where we have been wrong, especially when our being wrong has wronged another. Being Love requires forgiveness – forgiveness of self and other – but likely not the kind of forgiveness you learned about in church. Being Love requires commitment along with countless opportunities to re-commit.
Being Love is an inside job. Being Love takes work. Being Love is hard. It is for these reasons, and the ones mentioned above, that so few even attempt, let alone succeed at being Love. This is especially true in a world that wants to be hate and which appears to be overwhelmingly successful in being hate.
Hate is easy. Born out of our instinctual drive to be suspicious of that which is unfamiliar, hate separates and divides in an attempt to keep us safe from the unknown. As reasoning animals, we are supposed to evolve past this drive to separate. Sadly, most have not evolved past this, simply because evolving takes work. Hating is easy. Being Love is hard.
Even with intention, desire, commitment, and drive, being Love is hard. I’ve learned and experienced this in my own life. One of the reasons hatred is so easy is because it feeds us. Hatred allows us to believe we are right and everyone else is wrong. Hatred fills us with a charge that can feel energizing and empowering. Hatred makes us feel powerful. Hatred allows us to feel superior. Hatred creates in us the illusion of being safe from those who have or could cause us harm.
Feeding on hatred, however, is like ingesting poison. Feeding on hatred makes us sick. Many years ago I became aware of the ways in which hatred was harming me. Eventually I decided to stop.
Deciding to stop was only the first step, however. From then on, I have dived deeply into researching and applying a multitude of wisdom practices that have helped me move from being hate to being Love. In applying these practices, this is what I’ve learned:
- We cannot just “think” our way into being Love.
- Instead, we must go deep within ourselves to the places we have forgotten that we are Love and heal those.
- Over and over and over and over and over and over again.
- Being Love (and by association forgiveness) has NOTHING to do with “the other,” and everything to do with ourselves.
- As we heal the inner obstacles to Love, we are not only healing ourselves, others are healed as well.
- Another human’s inability to being Love is none of our business, except as an invitation to being more loving ourselves.
- We cannot heal or change anyone but ourselves.
- We can despise an individual’s actions while still having Love for them.
This #8 may in fact be the single most important challenge to us as we try to be Love. Every single day we encounter wounded and broken human beings who do not know they are Love. Having never been given a chance, or having never chosen to evolve, they find themselves living solely out of their instinctual center. From this fear center, the only way they know how to function is to divide themselves from that which they perceive as different. It is out of this fear that things like racism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia arise. While our reasoning minds might not be able to understand how someone would purposefully choose hatred, until we evolve beyond our instinctual drives, anything other than hatred might not be a choice. To put it succinctly, hatred is just another word for fear. While we might despise the actions of someone choosing hatred over Love, we can have compassion and love for the wounded human inside of them who doesn’t know any other way to respond to fear.
While responding to fear/hatred with more fear/hatred might be easy, it is not how we bring more Love into our world. The only way for Love to grow is to be Love ourselves. In being Love and continuing to heal the places in ourselves that have forgotten we are Love, we are providing humanity with an example of what Love looks like which then gives them an opportunity to make another choice.
Being hatred or being Love? It is a choice.
Being Love begins with self-knowledge.
The Order of the Magdalene Formation Program provides you with resources, knowledge, and tools to support you in your own journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
Hold the Line
Hold the Line
Love isn’t always on time.
These are the words that keep dancing around in my head. As we are continuing to be witness to the collapse of the world as we have known it, these are important words to remember.
Love does not come in our time. Love comes in “God’s” time. We are not in charge of the unfolding of current events. Instead, we are witnesses and Love-bearers.
As witnesses our job is to watch, observe, and hold space for all the many faces of grief we will experience in the face of the death-throes of the patriarchy. As Love-bearers, we are meant to observe the unfolding from a place of non-judgment and detachment.
Love is universal. All are made by and for Love. Even (especially) those we perceive to be living a life contrary to Love. Jesus said “Love thy neighbor,” and “Pray for your enemies.” Our neighbors are those we perceive to be like us. Our enemies – well, we know who they are. We are called to Love them – one and all.
I know, easier said than done. When we watch humans being cruel toward each other, treating one another with disrespect, acting as if some are deserving of liberties and others are not, it is hard.
When it is hard, we are called to pray for ourselves. “Help me in my unbelief.” “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” “Teach me how to Love.”
All are wounded seeking to be free. Some know they are wounded and are seeking their own healing. Most aren’t even aware they’re wounded and are simply acting out of those wounds.
Love one another. Pray for each other’s healing.
And don’t interfere. It is said “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” The same is true of humans. The difference between horses and humans is that humans can’t even be led. All we can do is our own work of being Love in the world and being that Love more fully. Sometimes, our presence awakens others to the Love within themselves, and to the invitation to knowing that Love. Sometimes our presence pisses people off. Neither is within our control. It’s not personal. It’s none of our business.
Each of our names are written on the palm of God’s hands. Our lives are written in Her book. If you are reading this, you are here simply for the purpose of Love. Be that Love and live from that Love and that is all you need to know.
Hold the line. The Love that you are is always on time.
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Love Waiting to Be Found
*an excerpt from my book, Choosing Love.
A man I know to be one of the kindest, most generous, faithful, and humble human beings, posted a horribly negative comment against our incoming government officials who are of the Muslim faith. I joined my daughter in righteous anger over his comments. How could someone who claims to be a devout Christian, and otherwise a good, kind, and generous man believe such horrible things of our Muslim brothers and sisters? I was angry, but beyond the anger, I felt horribly sad. How could this man, for whom I otherwise have the utmost respect, believe that his hatred and fear of Muslims is any way shape or form consistent with Jesus’ teachings? I wanted to step in and ask him if he had read the story of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) – a story Jesus used to teach us that often the kindest and most “Godly” acts are performed by those who are not of our “tribe” or “belief system.” I also wanted to quote the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7: 24-30) who was instrumental in converting Jesus of his own beliefs – who through her persistence and insistence convinced Jesus that he was here for the whole world – not just the tribes of Israel. I refrained from commenting, but I still found myself troubled. So I brought this quandary to prayer.
This is when my compassion stepped in. My friend, in his fear and hatred of Muslims is simply believing what he has been taught by the version of Christianity to which he subscribes – a version cloaked in the same fear of “the other” that he already carried in his mind. To me, this is very sad. And yet, this man, like every single human being walking this planet, is a vessel of Love just waiting to be found. Quite simply, he hasn’t yet found the fullness of his Love – the Love he already is and was made to be, but which is currently hidden beneath a curtain of fear. He freely and generously loves those who believe as he does and in his working profession, generously loves those in need of his service. But, because he doesn’t yet know the fullness of the Love that he is and he hasn’t yet discovered the fullness of Divine love, he is not yet able to love every human being in the way that God does. Here he is bearing out Jesus’ most profound and simplest teaching:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12: 30-31
This scripture has most often been interpreted as a commandment, but it could just as easily be taken as an observation of what is true. We are only capable of loving our neighbor to the extent that we love ourselves. Put another way, the degree to which we can love other human beings is proportionate to the degree to which we believe in God’s love for us, and the degree to which we are able to love ourselves as God loves us. This is a plain and simple human truth. My friend is unable to love his Muslim brothers and sisters because for some reason he does not yet comprehend the vast and unconditional nature of God’s love and in this, is also unable to unconditionally love himself. He still has more love in him waiting to be found.
The same is true of all of us. Each one of us is Love waiting to be found. And every one of us is somewhere along the continuum of finding and then living from that love. Our actions on this human plane reflect the degree to which we know the love that we are.
This brings me to the topic of evil. In the human experience we witness a whole lot of what we are tempted to judge as evil. Evil, we have been taught, is the antithesis of love and something to fear and work toward eradicating. We are taught that God judges us according to our evil and that we are then punished accordingly. This is not what Jesus taught – but it is how fearful men have interpreted Jesus’ teachings and used this interpretation to gain an advantage. The issue is ultimately one of translation.
Evil does not mean the same thing as the word Jesus used that has been translated into “evil.” The Aramaic word Jesus used was bisha (Neil Douglas Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos). Bisha is an agricultural word which simply means unripe. When Jesus uses the word “evil” in scripture, he is simply observing the unripe nature of the person committing said-evil. There is no judgment here, only a direct observation of the actions arising out of one who has not yet ripened in love.
When we have not uncovered the fullness of our Love, then we act from limited and fearful states. In God’s eyes, we are not “evil” in the way that we understand this word in our English language – we are unripe – our fruit is immature. I like to think of it this way – when we walk up to an apple tree and see that the apples are not yet ripe, we don’t shake our fist in condemnation over the unripe apples. We simply wait until apples are ripe.
The same is true of God. God is watching all of us, patiently waiting for us to come into our own ripeness and loving us through every stage of our own personal process. We are all Love waiting to be found and God is waiting along with us – excitedly and with anticipation – the same way we anxiously and excitedly wait for our own children to reveal who they truly are.
We are all love waiting to be found and the Divine is here loving us into knowing the fullness of this love. It is up to us to say yes. We say yes every time we are willing to receive healing for the fears and unhealed wounds that otherwise hide our love. In the end, this is my prayer for my friend – that he finds healing for the fears within him that are limiting his ability to know and live from the fullness of the Love that I already see glowing within him.
Choosing Love is a collection of fifty-two spiritual lessons and practices for personal and global transformation. These lessons and practices invite you to shake off the cloak of cultural conditioning and discover the freedom of the LOVE hidden within. Here there is no God to appease, no outside perceived authority whose approval needs to be earned, and nothing that can keep you from being and living as your most authentic self. LOVE is who you are. Choose that LOVE.
Living Monastic
As an unmarried adult woman of a certain age, living monastic looks a lot differently than how one might imagine. I’m not living in a convent. I haven’t taken vows of chastity, celibacy, or poverty. I don’t wear a habit. I sometimes wear sensible shoes, but only as a matter of comfort, not because it’s dictated by my order. Instead, I’m free to date (if I ever find anyone worthy). I dress as I choose. I earn less than the median income for where I live, but that’s a matter of choice not imposition. I live in a comfortable apartment by myself that I have turned into my personal sanctuary.
Monastic living for me is less about the externals (how things appear from the outside) and more about the ways in which I choose to spend my time and how I choose to be in the world.
Time, for me, is a precious commodity, and one I use wisely. I don’t waste my time on meaningless interactions or the expectations of our culture. Instead, my time is spent in the way in which I want to spend it which starts and ends with silence. As an introvert, I thrive in silence. Silence is my practice. It’s how I tune into myself and Source. Silence is my prayer, my meditation, and my life-blood. Silence is the place I begin each day and to what I return when I find myself disturbed by the world or by my own unhealed wounds. It is in silence that I find comfort, guidance, and healing and often how I share my own gifts like the times I feel called to send healing and love to our broken world. My entire day revolves around this silence and I guard it with my life.
Everything else revolves around that silence including all the doing that must be done in order to exist in this world – managing a household, taking care of chores, grocery shopping, cooking, working to earn a living, (this is the chop wood and carry water part of monastic living), and all the things I do for my own growth and enjoyment – reading, watching TV, writing, spending one on one time with friends, hanging out with my children, doing yoga, and being out in nature.
Also surrounding this silence are all the ways in which I show up in service to humanity – as a spiritual counselor and mentor to others, facilitating classes or groups, officiating at a funeral, and executing my office manager duties at a local ballet studio. These are just the things that look official – you know, a vehicle for sharing my gifts and for making a living (chop wood carry water).
Beyond these obvious ways of doing is an even deeper showing up for me. This showing up is not about what I DO, but about how I BE. This being includes – being generous, being kind, being thoughtful, being welcoming, being friendly, being gentle, and sometimes being fierce. If I were to give a word to all this being, it would be LOVE – the kind of Love that isn’t all rainbows and unicorns but is sometimes like a shield or a sword – cutting through the bullshit, setting and maintaining boundaries, saying no, and being really really real with the challenges, difficulties, and evils in our world. Sometimes love is delivered in hard truths that some just don’t want to hear, at other times it’s delivered gently, but it is forever and always about love.
Living monastically in the modern world is a personal and counter-cultural choice that I know is not for everyone, but it is 100% for me. Arriving here has been almost sixty years in the making and I’m grateful for all of the experiences that have led me here.
How Love Calls Us
This morning I received an email from a dear friend. In her email she shared a news video of the October 30th “Not in Our Name” protest at Grand Central Station in New York City calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Palestine. Most of those attending were Jewish Americans speaking out against the war, asking for an immediate ceasefire and demanding freedom for Palestine. As American citizens, they condemned the use of US tax dollars in support of the war and implored the US government to stop its complicit participation in the ongoing oppression of Palestine, including the murder of thousands of innocent people. (Watch video HERE).
This is how Love calls us!
- Love calls us to look beyond human made dividers such as religion, race, nationality, gender, orientation, and belief to seek out the path of compassion, peace, and justice.
- Love calls us to bear witness to genocide, hatred, and injustice, and to speak on Love’s behalf.
- Love calls us to listen deeply to the voices of the oppressed and to be their voice in the places where they are unable.
- Love calls us to see beyond the pride of nationalism so that we might work together for the cause of peace and justice that seeks to support the dignity of all.
- Love calls us to risk ridicule and condemnation from those who want us to remain silent.
- Love calls us to see and point out the evils before us and to hold the purveyors of evil accountable – even (especially) when the purveyors are our own elected officials.
- Love calls us to move beyond any conditioning that may have attempted to cast “the other” in the role of “enemy,” and to seek instead, the Love that dwells within all.
The protest at New York’s Grand Central Station is the perfect example of how Love speaks and the power of Love speaking. Jewish Americans speaking out against the oppression of Palestine and the violence being inflicted upon the innocent at the hands of the Israeli government. Jewish Americans speaking out against the US’s complicit participation in the oppression and genocide of Palestinians. Jewish American taking a stand for Love and calling for the freedom of those that another wants them to call enemy. Jewish Americans saying, “NOT IN OUR NAME.” Jewish Americans acknowledging that being pro-Palestine does not make one anti-Semitic.
This is what Love does.
This is how Love calls us.
How is Love calling you?
Mary Magdalene’s Message to Humanity
An Eternal Easter Message
Mary Magdalene speaks to all of humanity about the current state of our consciousness revolution. We are at a time of swift endings and great new beginnings. We are observing the crucifixion and death of all that has been built on fear, power and control, as we are ushering in the second coming of humanity – the birth of the age of love and a joining together in unity consciousness. She invites us all to step forth out of the tombs we have created for ourselves which have been made of our hesitation and fear and into the love we were meant to be.
My dear sisters and brothers,
Thank you for joining with me in celebration of Resurrection. Two thousand years ago, I stood at the entrance of the tomb into which we had laid my Beloved, Yeshua and beheld the miracle and the truth of resurrection. Whether you believe in the literal truth of Yeshua dying and rising from the dead, or prefer to think of it more as a mystical or metaphorical event, it matters not. Yeshua proved to all that fear (death) has no power over the original nature of the human soul which is LOVE. Yeshua showed us, through his own example that the path to resurrection (freedom and love) was in conquering death (fear).
Yeshua was a normal man who discovered the keys to transcending the inherent suffering of the human experience – how to move beyond the fear, perceived separation, false perceptions and ego attachments that are the cause of human suffering and toward the peace, love and joy that are our original nature. In this state of peace, we are whole and we know that we are One – within ourselves, with our Divine Source, with each other and with all of creation. This is the truth that Yeshua promised would set us free. The resurrection was proof that what Yeshua taught was true. He then ordained me, Mary, given the title Magdalene, to share the message of the resurrection with the other disciples and with all who would listen.
Today, we commemorate the proof of LOVE – that fear/death has no power over the LOVE which made us and which is our true origin as unique expressions of our Mother/Father God. We are the Divine seeking its expression in the world. As such, we were meant, not to live in separation, but as ONE HUMAN RACE working toward the goal of love for the common good of the all. When we come to know this sense of Oneness within ourselves, all separation falls away – we are no longer separated by gender, race, nation, religion, politics, sexual orientation, or by any of the infinite number of ways in which human beings, living in fear, create separation between ourselves and our fellow human beings. We are one species, one world, one universe. When we know this truth, we work for no other purpose except for peace and harmony between, not only all human beings, but all of creation. We live as ONE, partaking of the great abundance of this Mother Earth, working to ensure that the needs of all are met – not just the needs of a powerful (fearful) few.
This is the time we have all been waiting for. It is here. Now. Our children have spoken and that which has been built on fear, power and control is in the midst of its own self-destruction. Very soon (in this moment), Love will reign. This is the Second Coming Yeshua promised – not that which has been spoken of by those who have misunderstood Yeshua’s words. Yeshua will not descend upon us in a fiery cloud. Instead, the Second Coming is when the Christ (the Divine spark of Love that has lain dormant in humanity since the moment we chose separation over love), is awakened and born in each and every one of us. You might call this heralded time Ascension, Enlightenment, Nirvana, the Death of the Kali Yuga, the Kingdom of God, the New Age, the Age of Aquarius. The name matters not. What matters is that you/we are all awakening to the Unconditional Love that we are and that we were born to know in the midst of the human experience. It is here. It is now.
As this is the Second Coming of the Christ, it is also the Second Coming of the Magdalene, for I am the Christ. Unlike my Beloved who ascended to the plane of Divine Oneness, I have remained with you my sisters and brothers. Present with you throughout these millennia, hidden away in the secret, mystical, contemplative, shamanic, esoteric, magical traditions of the West and in the East. Speaking and whispering into the hearts of the mystics. Reaching into the consciousness of your prophets, activists and holy people. I am the voice of Wisdom. I am the Sophia. I am the Great and Dark Mother, awakening you out of your complacency and into the Light. I am compelling you to seek love, to demand peace, to work for justice. I have been with you, silently guiding you through the truth that dwells deep in your heart – the place where you know what is right and good and merciful for the all. I have never left you, but have remained until what Yeshua envisioned came to pass. The time has come. The time is now. This is what we celebrate on this Resurrection Day…not the rising of Yeshua from the death….but YOUR rising from the dead! Awake my sisters and brothers. Come forth out of your tombs. Accept your calling to be vessels of the Divine, turning our world from fear into love.
Amen! Amen! Alleluia!
Love,
Mary, called Magdalene
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